"I kept feeling I had seen this all before . . ." Not the sort of observation one would expect from someone on their first visit to Africa, but then Marian Flannery of Moygownagh in north Mayo came with an experienced eye.
A farmer, mother of three and chair of Women of the North West, Mrs Flannery has a background in community development. She was one of the Irish contingent that attended the UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing four years ago.
Earlier this year she travelled almost 2,000km across Tanzania with Victoria McElligott, a mother of eight who is active in community work in Ballymun, Dublin.
Their brief was to view various aid projects, some of them supported by Irish funds, and to examine the lives of Tanzanian women in the aftermath of the Beijing conference.
Recording the reaction of both was Anne Daly, former RTE journalist and co-founder of Esperanza Productions. Aptly entitled Are We So Different?, her documentary sought to focus on the neglected or even forgotten voices of women in the east African state while also holding up a mirror in terms of Irish involvement.
Not surprisingly, the reaction of both women to what they saw varied, but in some instances the contrast was startling.
The sight of Tanzanian mothers with small children trying to eke out a living breaking stones brought tears to the eyes of the Ballymun woman. However, Marian, with her Mayo background, could see there was a dignity in the work.
"It is not so long ago since women in Belmullet were campaigning, with the support of Maud Gonne, for the right to participate in post-Famine workfare schemes," she said. "At least it is better than some alternatives, like prostitution."
The urban-rural divide crops up constantly in the documentary, with Daly serving as facilitator and provocateur. The AIDS issue was obviously something both women found difficult to come to grips with.
Tanzanian women simply cannot tell their spouses if they become infected with HIV. One of those interviewed for the programme, Christina Nchimbi, spoke of her pain, her discomfort, her difficulty in eating anything but watery porridge. A 40year-old mother of four, one of her children had been diagnosed as HIV positive. Tragically, she has died since the programme was made.
For Mrs Flannery, it confirmed her view that the situation of particular women is universal.
"We saw some projects which were clearly set up to manipulate people, rather than to help them. We saw one big environmental project which only served to divide the fishing community. We saw some terrible poverty. There was no partnership approach. And so many wives were tiptoeing around their husbands, like the last generation of women here."
The documentary was supported by Irish Aid, the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace, the EU and the UCD Women's Education, Research and Resource Centre, while a gender expert, Pauline Eccles, helped to get it off the ground. Are We So Different? will be broadcast on RTE 1 on July 6th at 10.10 p.m.